One evening in Queenstown, Leigh, Melanie, and I went to Winetastes (http://www.winetastes.co.nz/); a unique opportunity to taste over 80 wines in one evening. Okay, we did not get through all 80 wines, but we did get to taste quite a few.

The system works as follows. You get a card with a magnetic strip on it. The wine has a dispensing system that protects the wine and provides 15, 150, or 300 ml allocations (taste, half-glass, full-glass). You are charged for each allocation. It is a fun way to spend the evening.

And yes, I did try the most expensive wine, a NZ$1,000 bottle of wine Penfields’ Grange Shiraz 2008 (the taste was NZ$35.00). Boy, was it worth it.

The shop carried over 700 different wines (95% of them from New Zealand). We could only find one wine from the States, a few from France, and several form Australia.

As the evening progressed, we decided to get a cheese tray and each of us selected a glass of wine to have with the tray.

And for those that do not like wine, they did offer several types of New Zealand beers and several whiskeys (also for tasting).

A fun evening trying wines we would probably never buy and at a reasonable cost